Berlin-based ImmobilienScout24, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, has made a ‘double digit million Singapore dollar strategic investment’ in PropertyGuru, Asia’s leading property portal company.
For your information: 1 Singapore dollar is roughly 78 cents in USD.
Update: e27 reports that ImmobilienScout24 invested SGD$60 million in PropertyGuru, or roughly USD$47 million.
More important than the price, this is Europe’s biggest online real estate marketplace aligning itself with Asia’s largest property group, so it’s a big deal.
Combined, those visitors generate an impressive 200,000 sales enquiries for advertisers on a monthly basis.
Says Steve Melhuish, co-founder and CEO of PropertyGuru:
“We see strong economic growth, rising middle classes, urbanisation, developing property markets, as well as an online explosion, taking place throughout Asia.
PropertyGuru sits in middle of all of this. Our revenues and traffic doubled over the previous year, and we increased our leadership position in our markets.”
According to the Fraunhofer Institute, Asia’s population is expected to grow 70 percent in the next 20 years.
PropertyGuru says it will use the fresh capital to expand and develop more services to help its clients find and advertise properties online.
In addition, the deal will give PropertyGuru access to additional talent and expert resources – ImmobilienScout24 will work with the company to exchange ideas, share best practices and build new products.
PropertyGuru currently employs 240 people across 6 offices in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.